I use Wegman's brand (a northeastern grocery chain) because it still has the trans-fat. I noticed the last time I bought shortening that they now have more shelf space for their own brand than they do Crisco. I've also recommended it to pie bakers who are having trouble with their pie crust. I wonder who is still buying Crisco?

First off you who are storing lots of Crisco. I have had shortening go rancid in just a few months. I would definitely at least refrigerate it and smell it before you make a batch of icing. I don't know if rancid oil can make you sick but it will taste bad. Be careful.

Secondly, I don't attempt to wash Crisco off my hands, I just wipe it on a towel first, then wash. It is like a moisturizer and if you use the towel again it just moisturizer your hands some more. Don't know about the rest of you but my hands get awfully dry with all the washing I do while baking and icing cakes.

I just bought Great Value (Walmart) All Vegetable Shortening at my local Walmart and it says 2.5 grams of trans fat per 1 TBSP (serving size). That, apparently is a higher trans fat than even the old Crisco. I have to say the icing I made with this Great Value and milk turned out great.

But that brings us to another problem. I made my icing Saturday with GV shortening and 2 % milk. I accidently left one small tub of colored icing on the counter, noticed it Sunday afternoon and popped it in the fridge. I opened it Tuesday afternoon and it smelled like sour milk or milk that has gone bad. Now I am wondering about the people I made the cake for and did they finish the cake before Tuesday and did their icing go bad. How are you guys making icing with milk that doesn't go sour.

AND now they are changing the GV shortening too
Whatever are we to do??
Stupid government telling us all we have to be healthy.

What is trans fat anyway? Can you order pure trans fat? I could sell it in little vials like gold!!!

Okay this Crisco things is making me crazy

When I make my icing I use water and not milk because I know that if I forget to put the icing in the fridge I won't have to worry about the icing going bad. I don't know if it really makes a difference in the texture of the icing or not. Does anyone know if it really make a difference if you use milk and not water? I find it tastes good with using water though.

why don't you guys just use the store brand shortening . I use the stuff that is sold at sav-a-lot and i have never ever had a problem . except when i ran out of it and decided to use butter, eventhough it did taste better it was tooooooo soft so never again.

I have always used milk for my icing and usually 2%. I have never had it go sour when left out. The sugar usually takes care of preserving it.

I agree about the shortening going rancid. My girlfriend thought she was doing me a big favor and gave me her 6# can of the old Crisco. What she neglected to tell me was that she had opened it months ago. YUK! What a smell. I had to pitch it.

Diane

I use 6.75 oz = 1 cup. I got it from someone a while back. I've seen people say 7oz=1cup. I've never gone to the trouble of measuring and weighing...not sure why lol

I know Crisco has said no going back but didn't Coke say that about "New coke"

I was estatic to see the Aldi shortening back on the shelf......until I read a little sign at the top, that said, "Seasonal Item'. I went ahead and got 2 cans, I will use it.....and it's always worked well for me......
Stupid government, why don't they pull all these soda/candy/junk food commercials? Leave the cake decorators things ALONE!

I went to Wal-marts this a.m. (Thursday) and looked at the Great Value Brand of All-Veggie Shortening and it said it contained 3 grams of Trans Fat per serving - so there is still some to be had out there and it was at the front of the shelf, also!!

Woo Hoo found some shortening with 3g trans fat at my local grocer (Brookshires). Its HyTop brand so they carry it in several different stores.

You all DO realize that you will have to deal with your buttercream problems once you've exhausted your hoarded stash of transfatty shortening, right?

IMO, you should be expending your energy tweaking a recipe to make it work for you. In other words, start adapting. I am very fortunate that the recipe I've been giving out to my cake students for the past 10 years didn't need a single tweak to work with new Crisco. I had no idea of the changeover until months after it happened. The recipe is in the recipe section.

Tweak, tweak, tweak! You're gonna to have to eventually.

Sherri

at wally world today they had the 'great value' shortening in big tubs (5 lbs I think) and that one has 2.5% trans fat

Ok, I'm not going through all six pages of this to find out if someone said this already, but don't stop going to that cashier! Look for her every time you shop there.

Apparently, she knows more about the products her store sells than an average cashier would, no matter what store they worked at.

Theresa

Well the results are in. As I posted before, I made 3 batchs of bc - one with old crisco, one with 0 TF and then 0TF w/ dreamwhip added.
I think I mentioned before that the old crisco bc is a very creamy white while the others were an off white, slight yellow tint to them.
I made roses with each and the old crisco came out beautifully, the 0 TF was a bit to soft and the roses were floppy. The 0 TF w/ DW was much stiffer and my roses came out ok but the petals were a little jagged, maybe needs some extra crisco to help smooth them out.
I then thinned the icing and iced 3 little cakes and timed each for 10 minutes. After 10 minutes I attempted smoothing with Viva Paper towel. Again, the old crisco worked out beautiful, 0 TF was not crusted over, and 0TF w/ DW smoothed well. Waited another 10 minutes for the o TF and it still wasn't fully crusted so I didn't bother any further.
So those are my results, when I run out of old crisco, I'll start adding DW to the new stuff or switch over to hi-ratio.
Just thought I'd let you all know how it turned out and will try to attach a photo of the cakes.
Zoraya

eta -can't figure out how to attach photo so I'll put it in my gallery

I've made several different recipes of buttercream :with Dream Whip with milk (I've always used milk); and with heavy cream and none of them seam to come out right. They typically come out very soft and they are too difficult to use for decorating. I haven't been able to smooth them properly because some parts crust and others don't. I made a cake the other day that I tried to decorate with roses. Roses were just kind of melting and ended up leaving the cake half decorated. Well, finally I couldn't smooth it out but after 2 days the bc had finally crusted. Go figure. Still trying to make it work

After reading these six pages of dreading the Crisco change, I went to my local Winco today and found a couple pkg with transfat, yipee. I am new to all this but I trust your love for the old stuff is valid. Looking back now, maybe my roses not turning out right is because I had the 0 transfat stuff....or maybe it's just me